Why the 'initial' in the form-bean Does Not Automatically Populate the Form?

[JiaPei Jen]

The form-bean in my struts-config.xml is specified like this:

<form-bean
name="threadForm"
type="org.apache.struts.validator.DynaValidatorForm">
   <form-property
      name="sort"
      initial="thread_last_post_date"
      type="java.lang.String"/>
   <form-property
      name="order"
      initial="DESC"
      type="java.lang.String"/>
</form-bean>

My servlet extends Action has the following code:

  DynaActionForm initForm = ( DynaActionForm )form;
  String sort = ( String )initForm.get( "sort" );
  String order = ( String )initForm.get( "order" );

The action mapping for this action is like:

    <action
        roles="administrator,editor,contributor"
        path="/message/ListThreads"
        type="org.MyOrg.MyProj.message.ListThreads"
        name="threadForm"
        scope="request"
        validate="false">
       <forward
            name="success"
            path=".thread.Form"/>
    </action>

If I call the action with the threadForm submitted, the application works fine.

If I call the action "without" the threadForm submitted, the server cannot get the 'initial' in the form-bean.

Something must be missing because the 'initial' should automatically populate the form if the server cannot find a form.

I really hope someone could spot the error.